Family of Easton homicide vic: Beep just inherited that 'I'm-gonna-help-everybody-gene.”

The family of a 32-year-old Easton man found dead in a downtown motel Wednesday believe he died because he was "taking in strays."

"He was like my mom," Andrew "Beep" White's sister Andrea said Friday at her apartment in Easton. "She would take anybody out, take in strays. I would come home and somebody would be in my room and she would just say they needed a place to stay. Beep just inherited that 'I'm-gonna-help-everybody' gene."

Easton police found White, of the 500 block of Ferry Street, in a Quality Inn room, dead from a single gunshot wound to his head. They have called Jeffrey S. Knoble Jr., a "person of interest" in the homicide, but no charges have been filed.

On Friday Easton police said they have nothing new to report in their investigation. Knoble is being held in Northampton County Prison on $350,000 bail on charges of making terroristic threats stemming from a standoff with police hours after the murder.

Andrea White said her brother rented the hotel room so Knoble had a place to stay. A couple who are friends with Beep White were staying in his apartment just a few blocks away on Ferry Street. She said her family believes White met Knoble through a mutual friend and learned Knoble needed a place to stay that night, so he rented a room.

Jeffrey S. Knoble Jr. showed his mother a cellphone video of a naked man lying face down in a pool of blood, Easton police said. Then he told her he'd kill the cops if they came for him, court records show. She called the police.

Early that morning, White said she called police because friends who had been with her brother overnight hadn't heard from him. They found his work clothes in his apartment, so they called police about 6 a.m. White said it was too soon for a missing persons report. Friends told her they'd last seen him with Knoble at the Quality Inn.

But throughout the day her brother, whom she called, the "Selfie King," hadn't posted on Facebook or spoken with any of their friends. Then when she saw there'd been a standoff in another part of Easton involving Knoble she realized things were worse than she feared.

She called the Quality Inn and the receptionist told her the door was marked, "do not disturb," and no one was answering the phone in the room. At that point she called police and they told her to come to the police station.

"How can you – as inconsiderate, as inhuman – take a picture of (a dead person) and show it off like a trophy?" White said. "There's a lot of bad people in this world and I wouldn't want to have that happen to anyone…my brother didn't deserve that. Nobody does."

He was a cosmetologist by training, but he was working at a factory in Phillipsburg, said. He loved fashion and showing off his clothing, she said. As far as crimes, she said, he wasn't like Knoble, who records show has spent more than five and a half years in prison in the seven since he turned 18. Her brother had tried marijuana, she said, and it "wasn't a good look for him" and he stopped.

"My father had a history of addiction and he's been in and out of prison," White said. "But in the last few years he's been a really good, a really good, male role model. He's definitely grown through the issues he had. I think Beep saw that and said my dad got through (drugs and prison) and they – anybody – can get through that, anybody can get better."